


Both Good and True

by Paladog_Vyt



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Gen, Identity, Identity Issues, Moral Dilemmas, Morality, Past Violence, Podfic Welcome, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:54:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24272398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paladog_Vyt/pseuds/Paladog_Vyt
Summary: A tale of Two Brians. A short philosopohical musing on DrumBot Brian's nature and his struggles to understand and live with himself. (Also I'm claiming Stranger for Brian since it's not like we have canon on those characters).
Comments: 23
Kudos: 45





	Both Good and True

DrumBot Brian knows he is a man of many parts, and not because of the tools and accessories built into his metal body. He is a constant argument.

His Heart says that there are two great forces in the world, beyond gods, beyond principles- The Void and Life. The Void is cold, empty, barren, silent, lonely. Life is all heat and burning and savagery, its art is violence- from Doctor Carmilla’s scalpel to Tim’s guns. Even octokittens have sharp teeth to draw blood with. Even the Stowaways have a fire behind their eyes, a frenzy to their smiles.

His mind tells him that, logically, The Mechanisms are at the extreme end of violence, and all life in the universe should not reasonably be judged by their example.

His memories, few and fragmented as they are, remind him of a mob, a boiling sea of angry, shouting faces holding sparking torches and heavy weapons. Perhaps there is no difference after all.

Though both forces seem to be opposites, they feed into each other constantly- one cycling into the next in turn. Roiling war to still death, cold death to burning vengeance. From the angry, grasping, feverish hands of the mob to the icy, silent space between stars, to the ship that smells of gunpowder and smoke. His heart is a living, pulsing, red thing beating in the cold, hollow, sterile space of his chest. He is made of contradictions. 

Means Justify Ends-Ends Justify Means, Nice Brian-Mean Brian, Boring-Brian-Fun Brian…the Mechanisms and the Stowaways have endless names for his two halves. Brian tends to think of them as Life Brian and Void Brian.

Life Brian _Believes_ , Void Brian _Knows_.

Life Brian feels. He is all emotion. His empathy overflows, spilling past the bounds of reason and into those that would harm him. He is revolted at the very thought of deception. He is sentiment and passion.

Void Brian thinks. He is cold and calculating. Life and virtue and principle each have a price, and he can weigh the costs, run the numbers. He looks to the future, he runs along the spiderweb of possibility to find the best thread, the ideal endpoint.

Life Brian is a man of principles, of lines drawn in the sand and rules that cannot be broken, laws etched into his very being. Life Brian _Knows_ right from wrong.

Void Brian operates in the realm of abstraction, in pure mathematics, in assumed and assigned values with no anchored basis in reality. Void Brian _Believes_ everything can be measured.

When wearing the heart of one, he cannot recognize the other. Incomprehensible, that anyone could think and act that way, impossible, that anyone could really live like that, least of all himself. He can see the logic, the rules each follows, he can even remember taking the actions he did in either state. But the decisions the Other Brian makes are always morally abhorrent to him. In both forms, he dreads the flipping of the switch and the monster he will become, all the while knowing he will then think the exact same about everything good he is doing now. It is the question that runs deeper for him than any other being with a conscience- how can he face himself in the mirror? How can he live with himself? 

Where both aspects of Brian can agree, the single core principle that constitutes his soul, is that he tries to help. In the battleground of all his warring parts, it is the one constant.

He tries to help, and for his troubles is shot into space.

He tries to help, and his crewmates draw their weapons on him (or worse, reach for the dial).

He tries to help, and Dr. Pilchard ends up a stain on the lab floor.

He tries to help, and sees his lover spit the word _Monster_ between defensive, desperate pleas: _I meant no deceit, I only meant to please_. (But even then, never “I’m sorry”, for he only ever follows his moral compass. Whichever way it’s pointing.)

He tries to help, and burns for a century in the heart of a star.

He tries to help.

It is the only self he has.


End file.
